


Souix Falls Is for Lovers

by herbailiwick



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Domestic, Grief/Mourning, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 15:51:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5254136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herbailiwick/pseuds/herbailiwick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where Sam is 22 and Bobby is in his late twenties shortly after Karen’s death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Souix Falls Is for Lovers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Awful AU #196](http://awful-aus.tumblr.com/post/116941769918/awful-au-196): “Sometimes I steal flowers from your garden on my way to the cemetery, but today you’ve caught me and have demanded to come with me to make sure the ‘girl is pretty enough to warrant flower theft’ and I’m trying to figure out how to break it to you that we’re on our way to a graveyard” AU
> 
> The garden has not yet gone into disrepair. 

There’s a kid staked out watching the garden. You know because you’re watching him watch it. You’re not sure what he wants with it, other than the fact he’s stolen a flower already. Two, in fact, on separate days.  

You hope it was worth it, catching the eye of some pretty young thing, for the rot it’s gonna leave on this kid’s soul, stealing flowers that belong to your dead wife.

Not that you’re one to talk about souls slowly rotting away.

You’re too curious about what he’s going to do, what it’s all going to lead to, to want to go rushing out just yet, even though that’s the bright thing, the _right_ thing to do, and just sitting inside trying to ignore Rufus’s calls now that he’s “in the area” again is not your greater purpose in life, surely. It can’t be.

There’s something you should be doing, some way you should be making up for stabbing your wife’s body to death, but you’re not sure what it is. Hell, you don’t even want to leave to shoo a kid away from Karen’s flowers.

Pathetic.

“What?” you snark into the receiver.  


“I’m comin’ over. I’ll break in if I have to.”  


“Aww, how sweet. You’re worried?”  


“Damn right.”  


“Don’t bother. Let me go to ruin like this damn house is starting to.” You hang up and don’t really feel bad about it. You’re empty, just...empty. Full of rot.  


There’s probably one part of the damn place you could start with, if you wanted to help the rot along. A colorful old place suffering from neglect. Since the kid already took his flower for the day, you’ll wait, though.

When the night comes and then leaves again and he’s disregarding your wife like that’s okay once more, you finally do let the screen door creak open. He spots you so quickly you know he probably hunts or something. Animals, or whatever Rufus hunts.

Seeing his guilty expression and dirt-streaked palms, you’re not even sure what to say at first. You barely talk to anyone but Rufus right now. You’ve told the church ladies to stop coming.

This kid. He clearly wants to hide, to run, but he meets your gaze, wary with planted feet. “Well?” he finally asks, rubbing the dirt from his palms lightly onto his jeans, graceful, only awkward in the cutest and most palatable of ways.

Disgusting.

“You’ve got some nerve,” you say lightly, lighter than the emotion still peeking through underneath. “And she must be some lady friend.”  


He frowns a frown you take pride in.

“I bet you think I don’t care about this damn garden,” you gesture around. The sunlight is so bright when you step out a little further, halting you. Why is the sun so bright? It just makes the flowers seem to pop that much more. It’s stupid.  


“Well, I mean...yeah,” he admits. “I was trying to see if you were gonna work on the garden.”  


“You staying at that hotel down the road?” His narrowed eyes give you answer enough. “Figures. What business do you even have here?”  


“I’m...visiting,” he finally says. He looks too bright, full of sunlight, the colors in his shirt providing too much contrast. You shrink back into the doorway, not liking the look of him. He’s confused by the retreat. You’re confused by his lack of one.  


“What’s she like?” He keeps frowning, like you’re not making sense, which, fine, cause you haven’t made sense for months, since absolutely _nothing else_  has. You burst back out into the sunlight. Well, fine. “Take me to her,” you say boldly. 

He holds up his flower carefully. “Gimme a few more.” The statement is spoken clearly, but it’s more request than demand.  

“A negotiator, huh?” You get close, eyeing his light, look up at him. He’s not _that_ much taller, but he’s tall enough. It’s kind of comforting, in a way it shouldn’t be. Whatever.  


“My dad is doing some research here. And, like I said, I’m visiting.” The kid shifts a little, waits until you crouch down and get him a few more flowers. You’re not sure why you’re agreeing to take the garden apart even more, or why it seems like the perfect thing to do. Maybe you don’t deserve to see the memory of her, don’t deserve to be in charge of the plants she tended to so loyally. You betrayed their springtime goddess. You deserve to lose them too.  


“I forgot my boots,” you point out absently, looking down. The damp earth squishes against your socks, and it should be more unpleasant. The kid looks truly uncomfortable for the first time. 

There it is: You weirded out the flower thief. He should be the weirdo, but, damn, something is broken and isolated inside of you, and it leads to squishy, muddy socks, though you’re not sure why.  


And by the time you’ve come back, he’s apparently been making a mental inventory of the fence, the house, that cracked window that you haven’t done anything about yet, a strange testament to that...night. To his credit, he doesn’t say anything. You’d probably leave if he tried.

You only break the silence when he tries to hitch a ride. “You know I have a car, right?”

He blinks, looks at you real intently. “Okay,” he says, as if trying to gauge if you’re really, really sure. Probably a good move, considering that would be even more of a breach of the space between you too, even more of an invasion into Karen’s sanctity. You don’t deserve Karen’s sanctity, though, not anymore if you ever did at all. Not that he knows that.

The road is gravel, the air blue sky and dust, and he taps his fingers to the radio before getting self-conscious when you glance over.

He tells you to make a right, then a left, and suddenly you know where he’s going. “The cemetery?!” you bark out.

He offers a mysterious smirk.

“So she’s a freak too, huh? You get your jollies visiting each other here? You like to walk all over graves or somethin’?” You have two people buried here, and one dad buried out back near the wood shed. “Well, where is she?” You demand, parking with a curve of the wheel, tearing the too-confining belt off the front of you.  


You’re not sure why it didn’t occur to you that he was there for a grave too. Mary Winchester, whoever that was. “Who’s that?” You demand, but the tone of your voice is floating on grief you haven’t properly expelled. He’s lost someone, like you, and you’re giving him a hard time. You’re just the resident grouch, no longer capable of joy or anything soft, not after you stabbed your own wife to death.

“My mom,” he says gently. “Wanted to visit. I’m from...all over, I guess. She died here, a long, long time ago. I shouldn’t have stolen from you. I’ll pay you for what I took.” He sounds like he’s coming out of a fog. You wish he’d show you how to do that.

“My mom’s over there,” you say, gesturing openly in the silence and the slight heat of the day.

“Wanna go see?” Winchester offers.

You shake your head. “She never looked at me the same, after...well, after...what happened.” You leave it at that. That’s too much you’ve shared already. This guy is just passing through, though, so what’s the harm?

“My dad was always like that, growing up. Could barely stand to look at me.”

“Things any better now?”

“No.” He sighs, folds his arms together in their brown jacket. “Honestly, it doesn’t really matter where. The legacy is harder to deal with than his bullshit. And my brother’s all about the legacy.”

“Well, I took over my dad’s salvage yard,” you offer. “That’s some legacy for you.”

Winchester smirks, oddly open. It’s nice to behold. He’s not so bad, for a weird drifter. “I took over my dad’s line of work too, you know.” 

“Oh yeah?” You glance around for a second, wondering if you’re starting to lose it. Dead moms in the same graveyard, legacies from your fathers. It’s too much of a coincidence, isn’t it? What’s happening? You should call Rufus back.  


“Hey, do you want some money for the flowers?”  


Money. How much? He’d give it to you, then he’d go, and you’d be able to sit in silence again. “No. Just help me out around the house,” you say. It’s so desperate, that you’d even say it, especially when you haven’t let yourself think it.

“Work it off?” He sizes you up, turning toward you. You’re not much to look at—overweight, cranky, starting to bald already. But, then, he doesn’t look like much of a prize, despite having a nice smile. “Definitely,” he says. “Whenever. Cause I’m not going back to my brother for a while; I can promise you that.”

You bend down to grab one of the flowers. “Well, Winchester, let’s go see my mom,” you say. Despite all good sense, he follows you to a grave he's never seen before.


End file.
